Outside In
by Firebirdie
Summary: It's not exactly surprising that people assume they know what they're looking at. They're just wrong. Vette's reunion with her old gang hits a bit of a snag.


**A/N:** Thanks for making the already-fraught dynamics of a male-female friendship _even more fraught_ with gross power differentials and societal assumptions, Empire! And thanks, SWTOR, for making it nigh-impossible to navigate certain conversations in Vette's personal quests and avoid being a complete asshole to either her or Taunt without implying your Warrior is romantically interested in one or the other of them. I just love me some hetero/amatonormativity. :)

#aroacesithproblems, #twilekproblems

Argh.

 **Outside In  
**

 **o.O.o**

"You're really okay, though?"

"I'm fine, Taunt. Actually, no, I'm great." Vette squeezes her hand and smiles. "I mean, not that it was all that fun getting caught in that tomb on Korriban, but once he showed up . . . I'm really glad I met him, you know?"

"As boyfriends go, you could do worse," Taunt says dryly.

Vette's stomach drops about sixteen stories. "We're not—"

"Come on, Vette, I saw how you were around each other and I know love when I see it."

Vette rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. _So_ not what's going on with us."

"Has he ever . . . ?"

"He doesn't like me that way, I don't like him that way. We're not together-together. We're just. Y'know. _Together_. Friends. Partners."

"Sure thing, sweetie," Taunt says with a vaguely pitying smile.

Vette glares at her. "Why would you even ask me if you aren't going to take my word for it?"

"Because you're cute when you get flustered, and because all this denial is making me itch."

" _Taunt_!"

She gives a wink, slings her arm around Vette's shoulders, and says, "Just giving you a hard time. So tell me about the Korriban job! You're the first person to break into Naga Sadow's tomb in how long, again?"

 **o.O.o**

". . . Did she just lock us in a maintenance closet?"

"I'm fairly certain she did."

"Oh my gods. I'm going to kill her."

She can practically hear Evren's half-smile as he says, "After all the effort you went to to find her? Really?"

"Yep," Vette says grimly. "I know what she's up to—HEY, TAUNT! I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE UP TO AND IT'S NOT GONNA WORK!"

"What _is_ she up to, exactly? What kind of—oh. Oh, no. She can't possibly think we . . ."

"Pretty sure she does _think we_ ," Vette says. She sighs. "She means well. Just . . . doesn't have a great understanding of boundaries."

Evren mutters something unintelligible.

"I know, right?"

"Nngh." There's a shuffling noise, a sense of movement in the dark. Then the overhead light clicks on, and Vette has to blink a few times before her eyes adjust. Evren's already squinting at the door, one hand pressed flat against it. "I can probably break through this with the Force without too much structural damage," he says.

"Y'know, ordinarily I'd say something about my lockpicking skills being a thing, and sudden exploding doors freaking everybody out, but somehow today I'm just not in the mood to be nice," Vette says sourly. She growls under her breath, rubbing at her face in frustration. "I mean—I get it, I know what we look like from the outside, but _everybody thinks we're fucking._ Or should be fucking. Or something. And it's just—this constant thing that nobody even questions, it's like the totally-unacknowledged foundation of my _existence,_ that someone's fucking me, that I _belong_ to someone, and _I hate it_."

Evren scowls. "You belong to no one."

"I just—I hate it," Vette echoes, slumping against the nearest shelving unit. "I don't want to be your Eleena Daru. I don't want people to see me like another Eleena Daru. She _died_ , Ev. Malgus killed her. Because she made him weak. And I know you would never do that, but you _could_ , and nobody would even blink, they'd probably congratulate you, and that's—it's fucked up. And that's all anyone's going to see. Sith Lord and Twi'lek _slave girl_." She spits the words out before she has to taste them.

He joins her at the shelving unit, their shoulders not quite touching. She gets this sense of—of warmth, solidity, _something_ , like she's being offered a blanket or a mug of steaming tea. There if she wants it. Ev's Force shit is weird and usually about a dozen different flavors of terrifying, but this—it's good. She'll take it.

"I'm sorry," Evren says softly. "If there's anything—"

"It's not—there's not much either of us can do, you know?" Vette glowers at the ground. "They're gonna see what they want to see. Even if we tell them otherwise. But I'm done pretending and going along with it. I'm fucking _done_."

"I will back you. Always."

"Good." She shoves off from the shelf and shuffles forward, tapping the door with the toe of her boot. "Now get us the hell out of here so I can yell at Taunt."

Evren inhales, the warm feeling evaporating as the air goes prickly and his eyes flare yellow. "Still in the mood for egregious structural damage?"

"If you don't mind," Vette says imperiously.

He snaps his hands forward. The door, its frame, and a good chunk of the surrounding wall explode out in a blast of dust and duracrete.

Vette stalks through the rubble, Evren shadowing her. The gang's frozen, staring at the mess from their perches across the room. They look like they've been placing bets—Plasmajack and Taunt are actually in the middle of exchanging credits.

"Hey, guys," Vette says, so bright that her teeth hurt. " _That wasn't funny."_

 **o.O.o**

"You had no right—"

"Vette, sweetheart, I'm just trying to help you," Taunt says, hands raised placatingly.

"Yeah?" Vette snarls. "You know what'd really help? Staying out of it! Actually _listening_ when I tell you we're not pining after each other or whatever the fuck you thought!"

Taunt sighs. "Okay."

Vette blinks, wrong-footed. "Wait, what?"

"Okay. You're right. You're clearly not ready to admit—"

"Then you know Vette's mind better than she does?" Evren says, all sharp Imperial consonants.

"I'm pretty sure I know her better than you do," Taunt says coolly.

"Actually starting to doubt that, here," Vette mutters.

"So what's in it for you, Sith?" Taunt asks, glaring up at Evren. "You get off on looking but not touching? Is that it? Is it because she's not human—you feel guilty for wanting an alien?"

Vette chokes on a frustrated scream. She can't get the words out. _How dare you how dare you HOW DARE YOU_ —

Evren's expression darkens. His voice drops to a register Vette associates with other Sith shitting themselves and scrambling to fall in line as he hisses, "What's _in it for me_?" And then he just _stops_ for a few seconds, face doing something complicated before it collapses into—concern? He takes a step back, swallowing. "You're afraid for her," he says. "You want her to be happy, so you push too far. And then you realize exactly what it would mean if you succeeded, all that might go wrong even then, so you turn your fears on me rather than trusting in Vette."

"Taunt," Vette says. Her throat's still tight with anger. Her voice shakes with it. "Taunt, you are way out of line. This whole thing, trying to get us to . . . It stops now. Got it?"

Taunt is quiet for a few seconds. Then she says, "I fucked up, didn't I."

"Yeah. You did."

"Vette . . ."

"Don't, okay? Just don't."

 **o.O.o**

 _end_


End file.
